Thursday, January 27, 2011

I've done a little more decluttering.

A hobby of mine is to search magazines and newspapers for home plans that I like.I've always got my eye out for a good floorplan.Something that "works".Something that suits me down to the ground.I used to attend open inspections just to get a copy of the floorplan.I don't do that anymore, now I can look at them on the internet.

Anyway, what I do with these floorplans, is first do a mental walk through the house. I'll pretend I'm coming home from work or shopping, entering the front door, then....and this is where I start making changes. Is there somewhere to put down my bag while I hang up my jacket? Do I have to go through too many rooms, hallways, doors, just to get to a bathroom? Is the main bedroom, which would be mine of course, in a convenient location? Are there enough bedrooms? Is there a clear run from front door to kitchen? If I'm bringing in groceries, is there another entrance that leads directly to the kitchen? Is the living room too separate from the rest of the house?

If there are too many things which don't seem right or too many things which I would have to change to make the floorplan work for me, then a paper copy is ripped up and thrown away, an internet site is clicked away from.

Now and again, I find "the perfect house". I'll dream of winning the lottery so I can buy or build it.Hasn't happened yet, I'm still dreaming.

But when I've found the perfect floorplan, the imagination really goes into overdrive.I plan colour shemes, furniture placement, where to install skylights....I even plan the yard. Where to put a washing line. A vegetable patch. Maybe a swimming pool.I'll cut pictures from magazines that would suit this "perfect house" and put them all in a folder.

Once "the house" is complete, I stash the folder in a drawer, and take it out often to drool over the perfection and picture myself and my family living there. Until one day I don't.The folder stays in the drawer, ignored or forgotten.Then, one day, I'll find a new floorplan.One that is so much better than the previous one.And the process starts all over again.

Well, today I was putting my latest "perfect floorplan" into the drawer and decided to flip through some of the others that were in there.I brought the folders into the lounge and spread them on the table.Six of them.

I was surprised at how much my feelings for these once perfect houses had changed.I even cringed looking at one of them, wondering what the heck I'd seen there to make me keep it for so long.

These are in display folders, so the "dream" pages are easily removed and this is what I did.Ripped up and threw away the floorplans and magazine pictures of six houses that I'd once thought so very perfect that I'd never wish to live in anything else but "this one".

Huh! I'm so fickle!

So the dream house pages are in the trash/rubbish/garbage, pick your own word, and I have six empty folders to start dreaming and filling again.

Unless the folder I just filled yesterday really is the perfect one?Time will tell.

I don't do floorplans (but they were the main reason for looking at a house or ignoring it when we were moving to Melbourne) but love ripping out photos from magazines of rooms or items of furniture that I like. Sapphire does too and currently has a photo of a wall full of books and a groovy pine staircase leading up to a mezzanine bedroom. She can dream.....

Windsmoke; when we first built, we told the builder what we wanted and he sent us to look at two specific display homes that he thought would fit our needs. One of them was perfect for us at the time, so that's what we built. I cried oceans of tears when we had to sell.

Kath; *snap* I have a few photos from an online real estate site of a house that was for sale probably two years ago. There are two walls of books with the lower floor reaching right up past the mezzanine study and bedroom, spilling across to create the second floor wall of books, t. When it was for sale me and my K decided whichever one of us won the lottery first would buy it to live in and the other one coud visit often.

I walked into my perfect house nearly 40 years ago and haven't stopped loving it especially the square entrance hall that has everything running off it. Now if I could just wave that magic wand and make every room just a little bigger, for more bookcases. The books are multiplying faster than I can take them to the op shop.